Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-12-09

1duliy, sometimes reaulnR dlOuo. OF went
TO his study again, bat never worked late,
thinking sleep to be a prime necessity
for health of body and of mind. He
was sound sleeper, and never got up at
night, as some one has fancisd, to iot
down thoughts which then occurred to
him.
The wide range of Emerson's quota
tions and the unhesitating way in which
he sometimes speaks upon subjects of
learned investigation: have given i'm
presslons not altogether correct concern
ing the character of his reading. He had
quick eye for a good sentence, and
never forgot one: but the quotations,
think, are som etimes all that he cared
to know of the book; and he woald have
been partly amused, partly ve1ed, to hear
himself described as profound student,
of the new Platouists, or of anything
to be learned from books. He was pro-
found student-of impressions, senti-
ments, experiences; and was ready to re-
celve them from any source. But of the
dIsengaged curiosity, the readiness to
enter into and pursue the ideas
of Others, that makes the student,
the man of letters (or again, the
traveller, the man of the worldl, he
had very little. He did not even parsue
his own. He was ever on the watch for
them, trying to render them without loss
into words: but of their further relations
to each other or to the ideas of other
people he was rather injurious. In his
spiritual astronomy or search for stars,
he was the observer of single stars as
they came into the field of his telescope;
he was not making map of the heavens,
or even of particular region; he had
nothing to do with the results of other
observers. Let each look foI himself and
report what he sees; then, if each has
been faithful, they will all agree. Mean
time if any correction be needed, it will
be given by the fresh experience which
life fails not to supply, if we are heedful
of its teachings. Books were for the
scholars idle times: at such times, Emer-
son welcomed them for the stimulus they
gave him, ito make my top spin," as he
said, without much choice, but with an in
clinatiou forward memoirs and books
Astounding in Observation-Disclosures, Mont
aigne, Spence, Grimm, Saint-Simon
Roederer; books about the first Napoleon
latterly, 1 remember his following Warm
hagen Won Ense's voluminous memoirs
as the volumes came out. He read the
'Vestiges of Creation" with much inter
est, and treasured in his memory from
all kinds of sources many anecdotes and
sayings of men of science. In his youth,
he seems to have read Cerkely and Hum g
with attention, also Coleridge and Lord
Bacon; and he was reader of English
poetry from his early years. After his
time of production began, books occupied
him less; though at Carlyle's urging, soon
after his return from Europe, he made
for once something of study of Goethe,
and read every volume, even the "Theory
of Colors."
He was not what one would call criti-
cal reader. His liking and dislikings
were very distinct and persistent, but he
never troubled himself on account of
them. On the whole what is
most noteworthy in Emerson's relation to
books is the slightness of his depender ce
on them. He lived among his books, and
was never comfortable away from them,
yet they did not enter much into his life.
They were pleasant companions, but not
counselors,- hardly even intimates. His
writings abound in quotations, and he
valued highly the store of sentences laid
up in his note books for use in lecturing.
But he quotes, as he himself says, IL a
way untattering to his author; there is lit
tie trace of that most fattering kind of
quotation which shows itself in assimila-
ton of the thought.
Study, with him, was mainly the study
of expression; not the rounding of
periods, but the effort to produce the ex-
preston precisely as it was received. If
he was sometimes led astray by what he
calls "the point and surprise of a SEN
tence," his own or another's-how little
he was willing to sacrifice to literary
form is shown by the stumbling blocks
he constantly allowed to remain in his
verse. His chief, one may almost say his
sole, aim was to write in close contact
with life and reality.
His practice was, when a sentence had
taken shape, to write it out in his journ-
al, and leave it to find its fellows after
ward. These journals, PACED and indexed,
were the quarry from which he built his
lectures and essays. When he had a
paper to get ready, he took the material
collected under the particular heading
and added whatever suggested itself at
the moment. The proportion thus added
seems TO have varied considerably; it was
large in the early time, say to about 1916,
and sometimes very small in the later es-
says.
He was well aware of the unconsecu-
tiveness that came from his way of writ
ing, and liked it as little as ANYBODY
(Journal, 1851 If Minerva offered me
gift and an option, would say, Give
me continuity. 1 am tired of scraps.
do not wish to be a literary or intellectual
chiffonnier. Away with the Jews rag
bag of ends and tufts of brocade, velvet
and cloth Of gold, and let me spin some
yards or miles of helpful Irvine, clew to
lead to one kingly truth; cord to bind
wholesome and belonging facts.